Sierra Club Goes After Coal Group With DOJ Letter

The Sierra Club is asking Attorney General Eric Holder to look into the antics of a lobbying firm that has been tied to fake letters urging Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) to vote against the now passed-by-the-House climate bill. The Sierra Club says that the firm Bonner & Associates committed fraud by pretending to be Creciendo Juntos, a Charlottesville-based Hispanic advocacy group and the Albemarle-Charlottesville branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.The letters urged Rep. Perriello to oppose the House climate bill ( H.R. 2454), also known as ACES. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) said today that it hired Bonner & Associates, but that it doesn't support the lobby firm's actions. At the end of the day, Perriello did vote for the bill.

To make sure the public knows, the Sierra Club will also be running a full-page advertisement tomorrow that will call out ACCCE in CQ, The Hill, Politico, Roll Call, and the National Journal’s Congress Daily AM. The ad says: "When Dirty-Energy Washington Lobbyists couldn't get any real-life supporters to defeat comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, they made them up instead."

The Sierra Club is asking Attorney General Eric Holder to look into the antics of a lobbying firm that has been tied to fake letters urging Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) to vote against the now passed-by-the-House climate bill. The Sierra Club says that